Man, the Slumpuppies‘ lives keep sounding better and better.

“Slumdog Millionaire” child star Azharuddin Mohammad (left) reportedly was beaten by his father Friday just days after attending the Oscars.
His father, Ismail Mohammad, got enraged when his son tried to avoid media in front the family’s home in the Dharavi slum.
He punched Azharuddin’s face and kicked him while the child cried and covered his face in pain.
The boy’s mother looked on in horror, crying out to her husband to stop, but the elder Mohammad kept delivering the punishing blows until his son fled.
“Azharuddin’s father was upset that he was asking to be left alone because he was tired,” an onlooker said. “It was like a scene out of ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’”
The father apologized after the incident became public, saying he was “very sorry.”
“I was so confused and stressed by my son’s homecoming that I did not know myself for a minute,” he told the Sun. “I love my boy and I am very happy to have him home,” he said. [NYDailyNews]

What a f-cking dick.  Guy’s kid does one movie and he’s already acting like a stage parent.

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson recently told the press that their youngest and poorest stars, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubina Ali, will be moved into apartments worth about $29,000.  With their families.  Not with each other, that would be weird.  Well, probably not as weird in India.  I imagine.

Colson and Boyle told the Daily Mail the children and their families are looking at new apartments on the edge of the area where they live. Boyle told the Daily Mail: ‘These are bricks and mortar flats. They will have electricity, running water and good sanitation.  They will still be close to their friends and extended family.’

The film company has also agreed to pay for a rickshaw driver to take the children to and from school every day for the next eight years – to ensure they attend.

“It was always my dream to force a poor toothless beggar to sew my soccer balls,” I imagined Ismail saying.

And in an astonishing turn of events, officials from the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority – a Mumbai housing association – have now also said they want to gift the children a new flat each.

The organisation’s chairman, Amarjeet Singh Manhas, said: ‘These children have made the country proud and have an equal hand in the film winning the Oscar [Editor's note: No they didn't.] These children are special and have won laurels for the country and we want to felicitate them.’

Read the rest of this entry »

Following the Oscars on Sunday, the slumpuppies took their adorable U.S. press tour to Disneyland, where they hung out with Mickey Mouse.

“In America, the rats are big and friendly and never steal your food or bite you while you are sleeping.  It is truly the happiest place on Earth,” I imagine Rubina Ali saying.

Oh, and if you think that’s racist, at least I didn’t just hold up a piece of paper with their names on it to avoid having to pronounce their complicated, non-Caucasian names.  No, it’s okay Seacrest, they don’t need individual recognition. After all, they were only the main characters in the Best Picture of the year, you worthless f-cking sack of processed cheese.
[picture via Radar]

Finally, a Slumdog Millionaire controversy more substantive than idiots whining about the title.

“Danny Boyle has spoken of how he set up trust funds for Indian child actors Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail and paid for their education. But it has emerged that the children were paid less than many Indian domestic servants.

Rubina was paid £500 ($745) for a year’s work [they didn’t do an entire year's work, I guarantee you] while Azharuddin received £1,700 ($2,532.95), according to the children’s parents.

However a spokesman for the film’s American distributors, Fox Searchlight, disputed this saying the fees were more than three times the average annual salary an adult in their neighbourhood would receive. They would not disclose the actual sum.

Fox doesn’t sound like they’re disputing the actual amount, they’re just saying the amount is three times the average annual salary of someone LIVING IN AN INDIAN SLUM.  Not necessarily the best defense.

Both children were found places in a local school and receive £20 ($29.80) a month for books and food. However, they continue to live in grinding poverty and their families say they have received no details of the trust funds set up in their names. Read the rest of this entry »